Horizon
by ebonyandunicorn
Summary: Set during the events of series 1, episode 3. Nick Cutter has disappeared through an anomaly to seek out and bring back his wife, Helen, leaving a confused Claudia Brown behind.


_"Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them,  
standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship."  
_– Claire Abshire,_ The Time Traveller's Wife_

Crouched beside Captain Ryan on the makeshift platform they'd erected in the basement, Claudia watched Nick Cutter's body vanish slowly under the water. As he swam towards the shimmering anomaly, she glanced over to where Stephen was slowly letting out the rope that anchored Cutter to safety and to home. She looked back over to Cutter in time to watch him disappear through the portal into the past, and then she was alone with her thoughts, two Special Forces men, Cutter's lab assistant, and the precious rope.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stephen glance at his watch. Cutter's tank could hold an hour's worth of air; after two hours, they would reel him back in and see what they would see. Either he would have been successful in convincing his wife to return, or he would be alone – at which point Claudia would have to intervene, on Lester's orders. She hadn't been happy with what her boss had commanded her to do, but she wasn't going to refuse him, either. After all, it was Cutter who had betrayed _them;_ it was only fair that he got a taste of his own medicine if he didn't manage to convince Helen to come back through.

The four of them – herself, Stephen, Ryan, and another Special Forces diver – waited silently on the platform in the basement. The only movement was Stephen's slow, measured release of the rope, and his frequent glances at his watch. Perhaps five minutes had passed, perhaps ten. Claudia wondered where Cutter was now; if he was still swimming, if he had reached land, if he had reached Helen.

_The revelation that Helen Cutter is still alive changes everything_. James Lester didn't often speak the absolute truth, but he had then. Claudia remembered the hot surge of anger she had felt when Captain Ryan had passed her the handkerchief with Helen Cutter's initials on it. She wondered how long Cutter had known that his wife was still alive. He had most likely suspected it since the first anomaly in the Forest of Dean, and Stephen had more or less confirmed it in the underground. Cutter, she remembered, had tried to pass it off as his friend hallucinating. He had tried to hide it from her, even back then. Claudia knew she had a right to feel betrayed; they all did. The information that Helen possessed would be invaluable to their mission.

What she didn't know was why it had hurt so much.

Stephen looked at his watch again. The constant tiny glances were driving Claudia mad; she could practically feel the anxiety seeping out of him. In an abrupt movement, she stood and walked out of the basement, out of the house, in search of some fresh air. Lester was standing beside his car with a mobile phone pressed to his ear. Claudia didn't particularly feel like watching him boss people around, so she stuck to the other side of the yard, pacing back and forth as she tried to figure out exactly why she felt the way she did.

Maybe it was simply the fact that he had lied to her. Yes, that was it. He had broken her trust by not telling her about Helen, and she was furious that he would do such a thing when the information was clearly vital to the anomaly operation. There were lives at stake, and he had put everyone in danger by withholding the truth. It affected everyone on the team as well as every member of the public. The fact that it happened to be Cutter's wife they were talking about made no difference – not for him, and not for her.

_Especially_ not for her.

Why should she care so much about Cutter's wife? If anything, she ought to be happy for him. Claudia knew how much he had missed Helen; she had been to his office and watched as he had beaten himself up over her disappearance. She had tried to convince him that it had not been his fault. She was not sure that she had succeeded. Now Helen was back – that would make Cutter happy, so Claudia should be happy. Instead, she felt very angry at everybody for absolutely no reason.

She checked her watch – she had picked up Stephen's habit. Thirty minutes.

Maybe she was simply worried for Cutter's safety. He had survived one trip through an anomaly, but the second one that had opened had let through a swam of terrifying bugs, including one that had almost claimed Stephen's life. This time it was a marine predator that had already been responsible for the deaths of at least three people. There could be more than one on the other side of the anomaly, too. He had refused Lester's offer of a military escort, and all that he had to protect himself was a wetsuit and a harpoon gun. Claudia chewed her lip. She should have insisted on Ryan accompanying him, at least. Another glance at her watch. Forty minutes. She went back inside and down to the basement, where Stephen and Ryan were keeping vigil.

"Anything?" she asked crisply.

Stephen shook his head. "He'll have reached land by now."

_He'll have reached Helen by now_. Claudia swept back upstairs as fast as she had come down. This time Lester caught her before she could sneak away. "Any news from Professor Cutter?" he asked.

"No, sir," Claudia replied.

"Hm. Very well. Special Forces will be here in about an hour; I want you to oversee their preparation, keep the rest of Cutter's team off their backs. I don't trust them not to intervene. He has them all wrapped around his finger – they practically worship the ground he walks on. They're so utterly convinced of the truth of his every word... Well, he's turned out not to be such a saint now, hasn't he?"

"Yes, sir." Claudia stared at her shoes.

"Let me know if you hear anything," Lester ordered. "I think I'm going to help myself to a cup of tea."

She watched him go. She glanced at her watch.

* * *

Soon more than an hour had passed and Claudia had come to the realisation that she had to be honest with herself. To anyone else she could dissemble, but she was mature enough to recognise that her feelings about all of this were driven by more than simple concern for safety. Somehow, Claudia had allowed this to become personal and now she was feeling the effects of it. The relationship between herself and Nick Cutter was a purely professional one – regardless of the circumstances under which they had first been introduced – and she did not have the right to feel hurt or angry on anything beyond a professional level. If it had been Cutter's mother or sister returning from the dead, she would have been equally mad at the lie... but perhaps not equally disappointed by the fact itself.

Claudia mentally kicked herself. _Professionalism._ Cutter would find Helen and bring her back and they would see what happened from there. If Helen decided to stay in the present and help, they would most likely end up colleagues of some description. Claudia had a brief mental image of herself sitting opposite Helen at a Home Office desk with Cutter between them, discussing the latest creature incursion. She could not reconcile the wildness of the woman she had seen in the photographs with the cool, polished interior of the Home Office – and nor did she relish the close proximity in which Helen and Cutter would sit.

_Claudia Brown, you are jealous._

The realisation stung more than she had expected. It was childish and it was crazy. She had absolutely no right to be jealous. Helen Cutter was his _wife._ They belonged together – or had, eight years ago. Whatever she felt for Cutter – _about_ Cutter – would pale in comparison to the bond between him and Helen. They were married, for God's sake. She wasn't going to come between them. She didn't want to.

Much.

The low rumble of a car's engine pulled Claudia away from that already very uncomfortable line of thought. Lester was beckoning her over; she went to greet the Special Forces divers and show them into the house. As they pulled on their gear, she ignored the looks Stephen, Abby and Connor were giving her. There was a glass door that would separate them. She closed it.

There were less than thirty minutes to go now before they would reel Cutter back in. She stood in one corner of the room as the Special Forces divers adjusted their gear and spoke in low voices. James Lester stood in the other corner, his arms folded across his chest, a smirk on his face. Claudia had to look away from his smugly satisfied expression, forcing down a stab of guilt. What they were doing was for the good of all of them, and it was Cutter's own fault in the first place.

Cutter. She remembered their last conversation – if it could be called a conversation. She had reprimanded him, and rightly so, for keeping the truth about Helen from all of them. She had thrown his wife's message to the ground and stormed out of the room. She had been angry, more angry at Cutter than she had ever been before. She had felt betrayed, and hurt, and she didn't know where she stood with him anymore.

The last thing she had said to him was, "How can we trust you?"

Now he was millions of years away, in an ocean on the other side of time. He was, in all likelihood, with his wife.

And she was jealous, and angry, and it hurt.

* * *

"Stephen, that's two hours. He'll be running out of air."

Claudia heard Abby's words and returned to the basement, ostensibly to make sure that Stephen did as he was told. Quietly, though, she was feeling uneasy. Cutter shouldn't have needed the full two hours to find and convince his wife. She wondered if something had happened to him, if he'd come into contact with a deadly Mosasaur or one of the myriad other predators on the other side of the anomaly. The last conversation they had had had been an argument. Claudia began to feel sick. She watched Stephen reel in the rope with a sudden sense of urgency; soon Ryan was helping him, pulling with both hands. She stood beside them, useless and scared. Cutter should have been back by now.

And then he was – and he was unmoving but for the effort of the men beside her. "He's lost his tank," Ryan said, and "Get his head up," and "He's not breathing!" Stephen and Ryan were both in the water then, hauling him up onto the platform. Her hands were at his wrist, feeling for a pulse, then on his chest, beating out a rhythm as steady as she could make it. She covered his mouth with hers, not a kiss, but desperate even so. _Breathe_, _breathe_.

She pulled away as he began to splutter. "Thank God," she gasped, and then she was following the three of them out into the hallway, where they placed Cutter on a stretcher and prepared to wheel him away. Suddenly she was Claudia Brown, Home Office again, not the young, frightened girl who was so confused about her feelings for this man. She had a job to do. She bent over him. "Was Helen with you?"

"Yes," she heard him whisper.

"So she was there?" They began to wheel him out. She looked at Captain Ryan. "You know what to do."

She watched him lead his team into the basement, into the past. She felt Stephen's glare and wondered if he felt as betrayed as she had.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "It's out of my hands."

She left the house to wrestle with her guilt, with everything.


End file.
